Former Giants legendary coach Bill Parcells, here yelling as a coach for the Cowboys, is one of 17 nominees who could be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.

This is a story about Bill Parcells through the eyes of a student who became a peer, and a mentor who became a pal.

Mickey Corcoran taught the boy.

Tom Coughlin learned from the man.

And come Saturday, when Parcells’ Pro Football Hall of Fame fate again will be at the mercy of a vote in New Orleans, Corcoran and Coughlin will be watching on television from their respective homes in Dumont and Park Ridge in anticipation of the iconic coach getting the call to Canton they believe he has earned.

“I’m sure a lot of people all over Bergen County and football fans everywhere, especially Giants fans, know the impact he has had and know he deserves to be in there,” Corcoran said. “I really think this will be the year. I really hope this is the year it’s going to happen, because if he’s not a Hall of Fame coach, I don’t know who is.”

Parcells, 71, failed to make the cut in his first season on the ballot last year, but Saturday is one of 15 modern-day finalists, as is former Giants star Michael Strahan, up for inclusion in the expected four-to-six person Class of 2013.

“I learned to win at this level from him,” said Coughlin, who spent three seasons as Parcells’ wide receivers coach with the Giants from 1988-90. “The thing I admire mostly from Bill was the belief in continuity, the stability. He’s a very opinionated man who looked at things, evaluated them, and then formulated opinions and shared those opinions. He was a very efficient coach – there wasn’t any waste at all.”

Parcells won two Super Bowls as head coach of the Giants – the second one with Coughlin and Patriots coach Bill Belichick as assistants – and remains the only coach in NFL history to take four franchises to the playoffs (New England, Dallas and the Jets).

The Oradell native grew up in Hasbrouck Heights and received countless lessons from Corcoran – his high school coach at River Dell – through the years.

None was more valuable than the one handed down on a plane returning from Chicago following the Giants’ 1985 playoff-game loss to the Bears, when Corcoran demanded Parcells get over the defeat before the flight even landed.

Corcoran, who played for Vince Lombardi at St. Cecilia in Englewood, knew how to turn the page and move on to the next chapter better than anyone, Parcells once said.

Parcells and the Giants won their first Super Bowl that next season.

A simple message can go a long way in the refocusing process.

That’s one of the reasons Parcells called Coughlin a few days after the Giants ended this past season without a spot in the playoffs and a chance to defend their Super Bowl title.

“He wanted to really just let me blow off steam about the season and then let me know whether he agreed or disagreed,” Coughlin said. “He’s always been extremely supportive of me and I’ve appreciated it greatly. I know when I was at Boston College and thinking hard about whether I wanted to take the expansion team in Jacksonville, I talked to him three or four times on a Sunday just trying to get a feel for what he thought, because I respected his opinion so much.”

Parcells sent Coughlin a letter after the Giants won Super Bowl XLVI, a day after he was snubbed by Hall of Fame voters last year.

“Dear Tom, congratulations,” Parcells wrote. “All of the Coughlin vultures have now been totally exterminated from the surrounding buildings and telephone poles, never to return.”

When Coughlin played football at Syracuse in the 1960s, players did not wear white socks because they couldn’t be cleaned properly because of the muddy fields.

So the team used gray socks instead, something Parcells has never forgotten.

“Whenever he wants to make a point to me about returning to the things that you believe in, returning to who you are and what you are, he’ll make a reference to the gray socks,” Coughlin said. “He did that when we talked on the phone at the end of the season, just a couple of short weeks ago. One year, he did send me a pair of gray socks in the mail and that was to remind me, ‘Remember where you’re coming from. Remember who you are, what your background is, what your beliefs are, and don’t stray from that because the formula is a very successful one.’Ÿ”

That formula has Parcells on the precipice of Hall of Fame immortality.